Russia unleashed one of its largest aerial bombardments into Ukrainian cities Thursday, with targets including energy infrastructures in the embattled capital Kyiv as well as Lviv, Odesa, and elsewhere.
The Ukrainian military confirmed that it shot down 54 out of the 69 missiles launched by Russia since the assault began at 7 a.m. local time, CNBC reported. The statement contradicted earlier claims that 120 missiles were fired into Ukraine during that time.
Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv for five hours, marking one of the longest assaults of the 11-month war. Reuters footage of the hours following the attack shows emergency workers searching the wreckage of destroyed houses while smoke trails linger in the sky.
The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said three people were injured in the attacks, including a 14-year-old girl. He advised residents to stockpile water and charge their devices in anticipation of power outages.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, reported that 90% of his city was without electricity.
Missile fragments clipped a residential building in Odesa, but governor Maksym Marchenko said there were no casualties. Firefighters in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, hustled to extinguish a blaze at an electricity station, while the southern area of Zaporizhzhia was left with a gaping crater.
“I woke up to everything shaking, crumbling. I got up and screamed, ‘Vitia, Vitia [my husband], where are you?’ I ran barefoot on glass. He appeared and glass was falling off him,” terrified resident Halyna, 60, remembered.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba decried the attacks as “senseless barbarism” on Twitter.
“These are the only words that come to mind seeing Russia launch another missile barrage at peaceful Ukrainian cities ahead of New Year. There can be no ‘neutrality’ in the face of such mass war crimes,” he said.
The latest round of airstrikes is part of Russia’s ongoing effort to obliterate Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The weekly attacks began in October and continue to leave millions without power and heating, often amid freezing temperatures.
“The enemy placed a high stake on this attack, preparing for it for two weeks. Ukrainian air defense forces demonstrated an incredible level of skill and efficiency,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote on the Telegram messaging platform.
“At the same time, there were hits and damage, in particular to energy facilities. In some areas, emergency shutdowns may be applied to avoid accidents in the networks. Our power engineers are already working to repair everything.”
The latest string of attacks came just days after the Kremlin rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 10-point peace proposal.
While Zelensky’s plan envisaged Russia respecting Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, Moscow dismissed the idea on Wednesday and insisted that Kyiv must accept Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
It also demanded that Ukraine recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Speaking on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed Ukraine’s proposal for a “peace summit” within the next two months as “delirious.”
“[It’s] a publicity stunt by Washington that tries to cast the Kyiv regime as a peacemaker,” she said.
“It’s an attempt to give a semblance of legitimacy to a meaningless discussion that will not be followed by any concrete steps.”
